Thursday, March 30, 2017

Book review: Secret Ally (A Halo story) by Michael Blue

NOT A BOOK: Secret Ally: (A Halo Story)Secret Ally (A Halo story): by Michael Blue
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

First of all; I was getting the feeling the author is not at all aware of the Halo universe. Although the action parts of the book were decent, they made no sense considering the parts about the Master Chief. Additionally, the timelines with the rest of the Halo universe are completely off.
Then there's the stuff about the Forerunners. Greg Bear wrote the 'truth' about the Forerunners and the relation with the humans. Secret Ally is taking a completely different tack on it.

The romance in this story and the presumably erotic parts are... well... they're so artificial, as if the author had to put something in there. Apart from the countless spelling and grammar errors in the book (no publisher doing some proof-editing?) the timeline in the book is quite often incorrect.

Nope, this is one baaaaad book about the Halo universe. 343 Industries should have it pulled from the shelves.

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Iwan
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Check out my video's on YouTube, follow me on Twitter and read my IT Architecture & Strategy blog as well.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Book review: The New New Thing, ... by Michael Lewis

The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley StoryThe New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If not anything else, this book is mighty inspiring. Obviously Jim Clark is painted as a hero, but that's not important, what is important is that is paints a picture of how the democratization of the computer-world, and the Internet in particular, has changed the role of the engineer. Jim Clark is one of the first people to turn the nerd, the geek into a cool dude, one that leads instead of follows.
I particularly liked the passages on Hyperion, the sailboat with the highest mast, they were explaining a lot about the zeitgeist of those days and are amazingly comic as they convey the huge gap between the geeks and the computer illeterates very accurately.
Still remembering the days where you could make millions with just selling a domain you previously registered and the record IPO's that were day to day business it is hard to imagine nowadays that there was no internet, no online services that prevented you from leaving your home for something mundane as shopping.

I consider The New New Thing... as one of the must reads for anybody that is interested in being an entrepreneur and thinks about startups.

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Iwan
--
Check out my video's on YouTube, follow me on Twitter and read my IT Architecture & Strategy blog as well.

Book Review: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

American GodsAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of those books I started and although I wasn't really captivated by it, I did want to know the ending. I felt there had to be a lot of symbolism in the story, but that was not really for me I guess. An awful lot of times I felt that the author just turned somebody into a god in order to tie up some loose ends in the story.
Well I'm happy I read the book, so now I don't need to wait for the TV series which was announced and which was actually the reason to get the book and read it.


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Iwan
--
Check out my video's on YouTube, follow me on Twitter and read my IT Architecture & Strategy blog as well.